Islands
by mimujer
Summary: Directly following the events of The Breakfast Club. "No man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main." When they met, they would never forget each other. Once islands, they drifted together in the most unconventional ways until they found that, quite truthfully, they couldn't be without each other. John/Claire, Andy/Allison.
1. Chapter 1

"_No man is an island._"

It was Monday morning, March 22nd of the year 1984, and Mr. Winger was stood in front of his junior English class, droning out a poem by John Donne. At the back of the class sat none other than John Bender, known as simply 'Bender' to many, John to some and Jonathan to those with a death wish. On any other Monday morning, Bender wouldn't have been listening to Winger; he wouldn't even be in his seat. He would be sat underneath the bleachers with a selection of other kids he classed as friends, though they were all too cool to speak and held each other at an arms length at all times, smoking and staring up at the gaps between the wooden seats trying to make up his mind what he would with his day. Would he trash the men's toilets on the second floor? Would he give Dick a visit in his office and fuck around with him? Would he simply smoke numerous joints in an attempt to make the school day a little more lively? These were the things he commonly asked of himself.

But today was different, and Bender had other questions on his mind. So instead of going to the bleachers, he went to class-which was a first for a Monday morning-he wasn't too late, and he wasn't causing trouble either, much to Mr. Winger's slight pleasure. No, John Bender was sat quietly, feet leant against the table, arms crossed, and mind wandering in a way that was almost completely out of character for the teenager. Not that anybody noticed, because he was Bender, and nobody cared what he did anymore.

Mr. Winger repeated the sentence again: "_No man is an island,_" and this time Bender paid attention. His eyes darted to the man stood at the front of the room, giving him a look that almost showed a slight desperation; surely that couldn't be true? Surely Bender could count himself as an island? A vast secluded land full of secrets that were impossible to reach because they weren't obvious, because he kept them hidden. Bender had always seen himself as an island, or a loner, for as long as he could remember. At home, no one cared, and the same followed for school. By high school he could count his friends on one hand, and two of those friends were his dealers. Didn't that make him an island from the world?

But starting from Saturday, things were different. Things felt different, like something had stirred inside of him and hit some string that unsettled his whole body.

"_Every man is a piece of a continent._"

_They_ included him as if they made up a continent, different countries coming together and belonging together. _The Breakfast Club._ The name made him gulp, just as it had when he read Brian-_Brain-_-write it down in the note to Dick at the end of detention. He didn't want to be a part of some club, and not just because they were 'lame', but because it made him feel contained. Being a continent and belonging with other people made him feel claustrophobic in a way he would never confess to any other soul on the universe. Not even Cherry, despite the physical confession they already shared last Saturday.

He was back to thinking of her again. The princess. A tease, frigid right down to her toes, with the hair color of a fire-burning; Claire Standish.

All weekend he had attempted to get her off of his mind, and when he arrived at school on Monday the reason he had got to class so fast was to avoid him from thinking of her again. It was uncool of him to actually think of a girl so much, and he knew his few friends would rip it out of him if they found out. It wasn't just his credibility at stake when it came to Claire, though: it was his whole being. For as little as he had cared for her this time last Saturday, and as much as he wanted to remain as an island within himself, he was still wearing her diamond earring in his ear and constantly fighting the urge to tug on it to check that it was still there, just as he had when he woke up that morning.

Mr. Winger ended his class with the last lines of the poem: "_And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee,_" and requested that the class come back next Monday having taken the time to think about that line. Bender was the first to get out of the door once the bell had gone, and he nonchalantly leant up against the nearest lockers while watching the rest of the class leave. All of them had ignored Winger. None of them were discussing the poem or anything of relevance, and instead had drifted onto topics of whatever mindless interests they had. But today, it didn't seem to bother him so much, and he started down the hallway.

* * *

Elsewhere in Shermer High School, Claire Standish was opening her locker to put her books away. She was stood by herself, feeling very much alone in the crowded hallway as students rushed to and from one class to the next. Second period on a Monday was Calculus with Ms. Grier, but today she wasn't rushing to get to the other side of the school building in time. Instead, she placed her books one by one into her locker, slotting them into a neat order that she kept up constantly in a way that gave her some kind of sick pleasure. She liked things neat and tidy and clean, like the way she kept herself. The cut and folds of her clothes were always neat, her hair kept in place by spray or sometimes bobby pins so it looked tidy, and her skin bathed in various lotions to keep herself clean. Claire kept control of her life, because she could afford to do so. Just like she could afford to be late to her next class.

The students that passed her by in the hall took no more than a glance at her. She looked around at a few, meeting their eyes, but none of them carried on looking. Perhaps this time last week she would have thought the looks were stares, and everyone was interested to know why she was alone and five minutes late to the next period. But she learnt something new at the weekend, which had changed the way she felt about things like that. Something was off about her today. She looked back at the other students, but now she noticed them turning away, acting like she was just another student and no one special. Because that was all she was. Alone, she was just a girl standing by her locker in the hallway.

Claire inspected herself in the mirror she had tacked to her locker door at the start of the year. Around it were pictures of her and her girlfriends taken on her polaroid camera, that she had grown so accustomed to seeing that she ignored them in front of her. Instead she looked right at herself, felt at her face and rubbed her eyes, but only gently to avoid smudging her makeup. She didn't look any different, but inside she felt extremely so.

When she dragged her eyes away from herself, the convoy of other students was beginning to thin out and she was almost alone. Quickly, Claire grabbed at her books, taking no care in this and leaving her locker unorganised. She slammed it closed and began a brisk walk to her classroom, the slight heel on her shoe clicking on the floor as she went.

It was strange for her to walk alone; she had grown used to a constant group surrounding her. It was a rarity that she ever had any alone time, time to think, so she did it now as she led herself to class. Her mind took her to John Bender, and she found herself smiling.

But despite the fact John was on her mind, she didn't know exactly what she was thinking about him. He was there and present, his plaid shirt was an even deeper red in her imagination, his skin olive and tan, and his brown hair looked even shinier, but every time she thought about him this weekend past, she never came to any conclusions about him. She liked him, she could admit that much to herself. But then she also liked Allison, and Andrew, and even Brian, too. In a unison they had all taught her a lesson on Saturday; to accept them each as they came. She accepted Allison's dark clothes and hanging hair, and although she had attempted to improve her appearance towards the end of their time together, she knew she would have liked Allison for however she turned up to school on Monday, and she would always consider her now as a friend. The same with Andy; Claire had known him for all the years she had been at this high school, but now she saw past who he was friends with. He was more than just a jock, champion of the school's wrestling team. He was an individual, and when she had seen him with his friends earlier that morning, she knew something had shifted in him just as something had shifted in her. Hell, she knew something had shifted in all of them, but she still wasn't sure about Bender.

By the end of Saturday, Claire swore she saw something softer wash over him. When she came to find him in the basement, he looked different to her, and she knew it wasn't the poor lighting. He treated her differently, too, and she knew for a fact she hadn't imagined that. In her mind-something she wanted surprisingly badly to believe-she had found the real John Bender; she was the one to have found his secret island.

But where it went from there, she didn't know. And she pushed the rest of her thoughts away for the whole of second period.

* * *

Third and fourth period came and went, and by lunch time John Bender and Claire Standish had not yet met again. During this time Claire had felt herself grow more and more antsier until she felt like she was purely going to be sick all over her lunch table. She had refused food or anything to drink, in fear that she wouldn't be able to keep it down, and once everyone in the lunch hall had settled down she felt herself growing even more sick as she spotted Allison settling down next to Brian on a table with all of his friends. One of Claire's girlfriends, Heather, followed Claire's stare, and then nudged the girl.

"Claire, why are you staring at the academic dweeb table?" Immediately, Claire snapped out of her daze.

"Was I? I was daydreaming."

"Oh." Heather looked over at the two other girls sat with them, and each shared a look with each other, but no one said anything else on the same subject. If Claire hadn't known any better, she would have thought they didn't care about her weird mood at all, but she'd known these girls since they had started middle school. They wouldn't ask her outright what her problem was, but as soon as she left the room they would turn to each other and immediately start discussing it. If she wasn't sick enough already, she felt even more so now.

"I'm going to go get some water." And with that, Claire stood up, picked up her handbag and walked away from the table, her skirt and her hair swishing with movement as she went.

She really had meant to go buy herself a bottle of water, but as she approached the vending machine she caught sight of Allison and Brian again, and she watched them for a moment as they shared a joke and the whole table began to laugh with each other. She found that even she was smiling as she watched them, unable to drag her eyes away from her new friends. There was something she loved about the scene, and she knew it was the fact that Allison had kept her word to Brian. She had made the effort to keep up their friendship, going farther than just waving or smiling at each other in the hall, by sitting with him and interacting with him. And Claire knew deep down that it wasn't just because Allison had told them all she had no friends. She was just that sort of person; completely honest. And she'd never looked more honest to herself than she did today. Her hair was pinned back from her face, which was still covered in her black stuff, and her clothes were earthy colours that to Claire's sharp eye clashed, but it all somehow worked. It was all so Allison. Maybe it was because Claire knew she was trying to open herself up more to new people. She was even joining in with the conversation on the table with Brian and his 3 friends, something that would have seemed alien if she was still the same Allison she had been when she walked through the library doors on Saturday.

But she was still the same girl at the same time, that was the thing. There was nothing different about her other than the clothing, which was still hers. She had it within herself all along to branch out straight away, so why was Claire so scared to see Bender when she knew she had it in her too?

Her thoughts were interrupted when someone standing next to her coughed once. Claire snapped her head round to the culprit and saw Andy Clark standing next to her, his hands buried into the front pocket of his sweatshirt and a slightly lopsided smile on his face. Claire smiled back at him.

"You were staring."

"I was thinking about what drink I wanted from the machine," she offered back in response. Andrew nodded, raising his eyebrows as he did so.

"You know, I would believe you, but I'm not dense, Claire. I was looking at the same thing, too. I figured you might want company to go over there." Claire looked from Andy back to the table with Allison and Brian, and then behind them to the table she had just come from. The girls weren't looking her way. "Oh, come on, you're not still worried about what your friends are gonna say after last Saturday, are you?"

"I don't know. Are you?" Andrew glanced over to the side to the table he had come from; the jock table. They sat there every day and the conversation never seemed to change. Claire had sat there once when her friend Amber had been dating one of the school's basketball players, and the whole lunch period had been filled with talk about game positions and game ranks and game times and nothing but game, game, game. After that day, she had vowed to never venture over there again, and had passed all of the jocks off as mindless airheads. Claire could definitely see why Andy wasn't sat with them.

"Not even a little bit," he replied, and then nodded his head back towards Allison and Brian. Claire took that as a motion for them to head over, so she began to walk.

* * *

Bender was back to being under the bleachers, his back leant against one of its metal poles, taking the 3rd drag of his 4th cigarette of the day-not that anyone was counting. His packet of Marlboros was all he had on him for lunch today, the same as every day, but today he almost wished he had a reason to sit in the school cafeteria. He wouldn't even have entertained the idea of entering that room if it weren't for the fact he knew the sort of people you could find sat at one of the cheaply made lunch tables, one of them being Claire. He breathed out the smoke from his cigarette through his nose at the thought of her name.

"_John Bender is an island_," he muttered to himself under his breath, staring down at his feet. One of his hands went up to his ear to play with the diamond earring, her diamond earring, as he continued to stare down.

"You say something over there, Bender?" one of his friends, nicknamed Scissors, asked him. Bender shook his head, still not looking up, and smoked again from his cigarette. Every time he put the damn thing to his mouth, his mind went back to Claire smoking next to him in the library. He pictured her holding the roll up between her fingers in that sophisticated way, wrapping her lips around it and inhaling deeply, looking over at him while doing so, never knowing how much of her a tease she really was. It caused her to cough at the time, but he'd never found anything so sexy before in his life. You'd think, after having seen his first porno at the age of 14 thanks to his dad's badly hidden VCR collection it would take a lot to turn him on, but Cherry had captivated his mind in a way he wasn't too sure he liked so much.

The taste of the nicotine and tobacco in his mouth suddenly tasted foul to him, and his head was spinning differently to the familiar feeling of the smokers head rush. He quickly flicked his cigarette away from his persons and stood up, stamping on the thing with his heavy boot while doing so. With a nod to the rest of his group, he buried his hands in his oversized coat's pockets and turned to walk back towards the school building.

If every man is a piece of a continent, and Bender now belonged with Andrew, Brian, Allison and Claire, where was his continent now? Shermer wasn't that big of a school to lose them all, even for a guy like him who barely went inside the building. In slight defence, he had seen Allison earlier in the day. He had noted that, like him, she had kept a souvenir from her weekend detention, it being the patch from Andy's jacket, now sewn onto her jacket. It made him smile, in a sick kind of way. Sporto managed to score for a better team than the school's. Allison wasn't with Andy when Bender acknowledged her in the hallway, but she made damn sure that people knew something was up with that. And if anyone was to take the time to inspect Bender, maybe they would notice his earring as his attempt at bringing something to light.

_Nobody wants to be an island to themselves, even John Bender._

He was the most unlikely of all people. He liked to lock himself in his room, chair pressed to the door, sometimes his whole bed if his dad was especially drunk. He enjoyed shop and hated everything else at school, even free periods and lunch time. He spent his evenings and free time smoking pot and doing things outside, sometimes he would even help his neighbour with his manual labour job if he was really bored, but he had always enjoyed fucking around all day in the streets of his town the most. He liked his life as a loner, but he knew now he couldn't go back to that. He couldn't shake the memories of belonging to something, having people to lean on and talk to, people who would put you back in your place if need be. And even though he gave them all shit for who they were, that was the person he was. And they still liked him despite all that.

Bender found himself smiling as he walked, the knots in his stomach were disappearing and he was even starting to feel a bit more like himself. But then Bender looked up, and on the other side of the field, no more than 10 yards away, was his continent; the rest of the Breakfast Club.

There was Brian and his oversized backpack and too small coat, trying his hardest not to look awkward in himself as he stood, smiling at Bender. There was Andy, arm around Allison's shoulders, who was biting her lip to keep from smiling too much in the most un-Allison-like fashion, wearing what Bender assumed to be Andrew's varsity jacket secured round her slender waist. And most importantly there was Claire, cherry red hair shining in the sun and walking towards him now that he had seen her, causing him to stop in his tracks as he stared back at her.

"You lost?" he said to her when she was stood in front of him. She folded her arms, almost in an act of defiance against him, a playful smile breaking out on her face. A memory of the basement on Saturday came into her mind, and his, too.

"Allison said we'd find you out here. We sat together at lunch but it wasn't the same without you there, too."

"Oh, so you weren't too high and mighty to ignore everyone today, then?"

"Well, I'm talking to you now, aren't I?"

"Good one, cherry." He tried to keep a straight face as he shook his hair out of his face, but he couldn't stop himself from smiling at her as the rest of the group joined them in the middle of the field.


	2. Chapter 2

Allison Reynolds also had Mr. Winger for English on a Monday. She wasn't in Bender's class-she'd only seen him once in passing before meeting him on Saturday-because Winger also taught in Advanced Placement, which is the version of the class she took. If Allison had had any friends at Shermer, she would've lied about being in an AP class. It made her feel out of place to sit in the same room and belong with the nerds and the preppy kids, but English was one of the only things she really excelled at in school. It was simple; she sat at the back of the class, just like Bender did in his lower English class, avoided speaking up or showing signs of listening, but always proved herself in the written work.

Winger was the only person in the class that actually knew and remembered her name, purely because he'd been persistent in trying to coax it out of her. When he had began teaching the class back in September of '83, Allison was just another one of his students in an early period on his least favourite day of the week. But consistently, Allison came out with high grades in almost everything she did. She found poetry the easiest of them all, because, as Mr. Winger had once put it, she had a very '_broad and vivid imagination_'. If Allison had any friends, she would tell them that this was his reasoning for her constantly turning in lines about death and depression.

Despite the intellectual differences between Winger's English classes, although whether it could be proved there truly was any was questionable-according to Allison, at least-he still recited the same poem to them on Monday the 22nd, and Bender wasn't the only one whose attention was caught by it.

_"No man is an island."_

Allison looked up from her notebook at her teacher, through her strands of messy hair, and actually found herself focusing on him for once. She wrote the sentence down, repeated it a few times in her head, and even scribbled the word 'woman' above man on her paper to make it more identifiable to her.

It didn't take a genius to figure out the meaning of the poem, and it definitely didn't require much discussion in AP English. Maybe if Allison had any friends, she would've discussed it with them. But that was the thing, and that was exactly what the poem was getting at. She thought she didn't have any friends, but she did. Well, she would perhaps use the term loosely for them, as she was still unsure about how to approach any of them now it was no longer Saturday. It wasn't that she didn't know how to act around people. Quite the contrary, her therapist was her best friend. But she'd never had anyone to go to straight away with her thoughts or her problems. Whenever anything happened to her, she would bottle it up in an imaginary box in her head, seal it up until she got to Friday, when she would go to see her therapist once a week. Only then would she reopen that box, never any time before that. Not even when she was alone in her room, not even when she was daydreaming, not even when her parents did take the time to ask her how her day had been. Sometimes, Allison wished she could have been born mute. She would've got on tremendously.

If anything, she was more of an island than anyone else. More than John Bender, definitely more than Claire and Andrew, more than anyone she knew. Even her parents, who were so busy they barely spoke to her or each other, always slept in the same bed and sat in the same room, meaning they had somebody by their side. But who did Allison have? A weekly therapeutic session with a complete stranger, whom she knew nothing about, while he knew everything about her?

She blew her hair out of her face, and earned a look from Mr. Winger.

"Allison, at the back. What do you think John Donne was trying to put across with this poem?" Allison held her breath, a habit she had when people expected her to speak to them. Even worse when they expected her to speak in front of more than one person. She glanced around at everyone around her and realised to her slight delight that nobody was even looking up at her. It was if she was sharing this conversation privately with Winger, or neither of them existed to the class around them.

"I think… he was an optimist. He didn't understand why some people choose to live alone, which is wrong of him."

"Don't you think that every person makes an impact on the people around them? Even if they do live alone?"

"I think people only make an impact if they're allowed to do so. Nobody can impact anybody if they don't let it happen." She pressed her lips together, and decided she was finished talking for the day. It was a start, and she was doing way better than when Vernon had spoken to her on Saturday and she'd buried herself in her thick coat hood. The memory flashed in her mind and it made her think back to the argument she had just given Winger. _Nobody can impact anybody if they don't let it happen. _

She had spent the rest of her weekend after getting out of detention thinking about Saturday, thinking about the people she met and the impact they had on her. She let them do that. It was her fault she couldn't stop thinking about all of them. It was her fault she rocked her own system by actually opening up to someone other than her therapist and now she had to face the consequences. And those were losing her own island, and having to secure herself to land.

She suddenly felt an indescribable feeling of being extremely overwhelmed. While many felt desperate as soon as they felt alone, Allison felt desperate as soon as she realised she'd found people. She'd found her own friends. People she could tell lies to about her AP classes, and lie about her private life, and even her sex life. Was she, at 16 years old, truly ready for that?

Then there was Andy, and that was something she couldn't exactly figure out. She certainly hadn't predicted that she would go into detention and leave having had her first kiss. Her mom had asked questions as soon as she had climbed into the car, and she liked that Andrew made her parents notice her again. Even though her mom dropped it soon after Allison refused to talk, it was a start to something. When she had come downstairs for breakfast that morning with her hair pinned back and a letterman badge sewn to her brown denim jacket, her dad asked her if she had stolen it from someone. Andrew Clark made people notice her again, because he noticed her first.

One thing that she couldn't shake from her mind, though, was wondering if he would still notice her in the hallway if she went back to how she dressed before Claire altered her. They had argued and she'd sworn blind at him, but as soon as she walked in the room showing her face, he didn't have anything to say other than through giving her a kiss outside the school. What if he didn't react the same way if he saw her today. She doubted it. She'd still tried to make an effort to stick to what Claire showed her. Less black on the eyes, hair back, a broader range of colours would bring out her complexion. The only range she had was black, grey, navy and brown. And if she was honest, she didn't want to start wearing obnoxious pink sweaters that would even make the likes of Claire Standish jealous. So brown was as close to broad as she could get.

As much as it sickened her, she hoped he'd still notice her today.

She hoped that when she walked down the hallway, he would turn his head away from his dumb group of friends and actually acknowledge her as a person. Better yet, what if she was the one to approach him? Then he wouldn't be able to run away from her, or pretend like nothing had happened. Maybe it was wrong of her to doubt Andy so much, but she really didn't know him that well and he'd managed to capture her first kiss. And although she never wanted to be one of those girls, it meant something important to her. A civil agreement would at least be better than nothing.

She didn't want to be her own island anymore.

* * *

Unlike John and Claire, it didn't take long for Andy and Allison to cross paths. They had completely different schedules, but some of Andrew's jock-y friends always hung around by the water fountain near Allison's locker. It was close to the end of 3rd period and Allison was leant up against the metal lockers, feeling them dig into her back but honestly not minding. She made it look obvious she was waiting for someone to show up, but that was the sort of person Allison was.

Before Andrew could made an appearance, though, Brian's figure walking past her shook Allison from her thoughts. He was with his group of friends, all of whom were guys who looked as brainy as they came, and he hadn't noticed her stood alone against the lockers. Either that or he had ignored her. Allison frowned at him and folded her arms.

"Brian!" He stopped in his tracks and looked around quickly at the mention of his name, quickly spotting Allison as the source of the sound. Inside, Brian's stomach did a complete turn. It wasn't anything to do with the fact that it was Allison, who looked quite pretty today in a strange unconventional way, or that she was a girl, though it was quite cool for a girl to speak to him in front of his friends who were definitely not Casanovas themselves. It was the fact that Allison was and always would be in Brian Johnson's mind: a member of the Breakfast Club. The catchy name that he had coined had sprung into his mind many times over the course of the weekend, and he predicted always would every now and then, even if he no longer saw the club anymore. But what could Brian predict at 16? Life changes and it doesn't stop for anybody, even cool as cats Allison who was grinning at him because she'd managed to startle him so much. A smile spread across his face, a genuine one, and he tried his hardest to wave at her in a way that didn't make him seem completely awkward. Because she had kept her word, and she actually acknowledged the fact that she knew he existed. And for Brian, that meant a lot.

Allison nodded at the boy in a motion that told him she wanted him to come over and speak to her. He sheepishly looked around at his friends and shrugged his shoulders, still attempting his cool act, and went to greet Allison. She smiled with her teeth but then bit her lip to hide them again when he joined her.

"Hey, Allison. How was your weekend?"

"It was okay, except I went to some lame day long detention on Saturday and met a bunch of people even weirder than me," she said, her voice a monotone, the sentence a dare towards Brian to see how he would react. But in the short time they spent together, he got to know Allison more than she realised, and he didn't expect anything less from the girl. So he smiled again and shook his head.

"Funny, I did the same thing." And that made Allison smile.

It was around this time that Andy and three other guys walked up to the water fountain to get a drink. Brian's eyes drifted over to watch him and Allison's smile fell when she noticed Brian was distracted, so she followed the direction until her sight fell onto Andrew. Today he was wearing his letterman jacket, except it was missing something from its arm. Allison knew the culprit, and so did Andrew, but Allison wondered if he would have told anyone the story of them. _Them_. That was a heavy load.

"There's Andy! We should say hi to him." Brian looked hopeful when Allison looked back at him, and it made part of her sad. For as great as Andy looked and actually was as a guy, with his soft looking hair and really strong arms and surprisingly great dance moves, Allison always had the ability to see the bad in a person. She thought back to Saturday, recalling herself telling him to eat shit, remembering hearing Brian telling Andrew that she was an island as she walked away. Her mind went back to the poem and she couldn't push it away.

No, she wasn't an island. Not since detention.

"Wanna watch me freak him out?" she asked Brian, though it was more of a rhetoric let out into open air before she sauntered towards Andrew, giving Brian a view of her back and more importantly the letterman patch.

Andy was just about to lean down for a drink when Allison approached and got in before he could.

"Hey! I wa-" but he cut himself off before he could finish, because he, too, saw the letterman patch on her jacket.

Allison drank from the fountain for what felt like an eternity, knowing eyes were on her and she was probably causing something, and she wasn't even thirsty. Finally, she finished, stood, turned to face the boys behind her and wiped the dripping water from her mouth. The guys who were accompanying Andrew looked confused and slightly perplexed, perhaps mistaking her for some sort of klepto who stole jock's badges, but Andrew wasn't looking at her like that at all. He was looking at her in the way he had just before he had kissed her and when he had seen her for the first time with her hair brushed away from her face. It was a look of slight confusion, as if he was constantly trying his hardest to figure her out, and also a look of concentration, as if he was trying to look right through her. It made her feel confident and shy all at the same time and she didn't know how that worked and she wasn't sure if she wanted to find out.

"Hey there, sporto," she said, and smiled at him.

"Andy? Who is this? Why does she have your patch?" one of the guys asked. Allison looked at him-more like stared at him-and he broke eye contact with her quickly.

"This is Allison."

"Yes, it is," she said, then stuck up her pointer finger at Andy like it was a gun, and she mimed aiming and firing it at his chest before turning and walking away from his group. She continued down the hall taking big strides, tapping Brian's shoulder as she passed him, then turned around the corner and was gone. Andrew's eyes didn't leave her once, and in his head he began to hear the song Radio Ga Ga by Queen, because that was the tune she reminded him of.

* * *

When lunchtime came, Andy was looking for any excuse to go over and sit with Allison at Brian's table. He had been looking for her since he saw her during 3rd period, and it was just his luck that the next time he saw her was in the crowded cafeteria where he was supposed to sit with his friends, who had already given him stick for letting her take his badge in the first place. Who'd have known that the girl was notorious?

As soon as she had walked away, the questions began. They wanted to know how he knew her, who she was, why she was important. He'd already predicted this to happen way back on Saturday, when Brian asked if they would all be friends. He'd even run it through his mind when he got home, what he would do if he saw any of them around school. He played two versions out in his head, one where he had the guts to speak to them all, and the other where he ignored them all and it was like it never had happened. In that version he went back to his stupid life before and nothing changed. And that thought scared him more than the one in which things did change.

But obviously Allison was never going to let that happen, and he expected that much from her. She was unlike any other girl he knew or had been with before. She was unpredictable, and part of that was made up by the fact she had to tell a lie seemingly once ever half an hour. He found that he didn't even mind her dark clothing and dark hair and strange eating habits. They all made up Allison.

But Allison liked to be alone, she could handle having no one to talk to and going to places unaccompanied. He admired that quality but it also made him slightly nervous. What if the stunt she had pulled earlier wasn't her showing she still wanted to see him, daring him to come see her again, but was supposed to scare him away? Maybe she wanted to keep up her rouse of being alone, being an island to herself. And she couldn't carry that on with Andrew Clark sniffing around at her ankles.

And Andy was the opposite of an island. He was always on land, surrounded by a million people at once but always somehow feeling like he was separate from it all. Like he was drifting away.

He wanted to drift towards Allison's island in the middle of the sea.

That's why Andrew was so thankful when he spotted Claire not too far from him, also watching the same sight as he was; that sight being Allison and Brian sitting together. The fact it was Claire, self-proclaimed most popular girl in the school and running in social circles closely linked to his own, meant that he had found an excuse that wasn't so out of character to talk to one of the people he had met on Saturday. His friends didn't even seem to notice him leaving the table because they were too engrossed in their conversation about the upcoming game.

Claire didn't take much persuading to go over, and for that Andrew was very thankful.

It was't until they had almost reached the table and Brian had noticed them walking over that Andy realised he hadn't got any goddamn idea what he was going to say to Allison. Nice to see you and how do you do? They'd skipped way past the formal introductions now, surely. He'd had her soft lips pressed against his, touched her skin and felt her face, and if he was truly honest to himself she was only the second girl he'd done that with. In a stupid, sappy way that made him want to kick himself, he felt like it mattered some. He didn't just want to never speak to this strange girl again.

Andrew never found time to think of what to say to her before he had sat down beside her. Brian's friends were growing more confused by the moment at the arrival of the new people on their lunch table, and if Andrew had been Claire he might've suggested it was because they looked up to them, but he was avoiding that train of thought. Instead he focused on the fact Brian's face was the same color as Claire's red hair, and Allison was staring at him with an unreadable expression on her face. Perhaps he shouldn't have sat next to her.

"Well, I'm not going to say that I'm not happy to see you all here… because I am… but it's rather unexpected, and this table is kind of small for all of us to fit on it…" Brian began, his head moving rapidly to turn to each person surrounding him. Allison and Andy didn't even look away from each other.

"I like what you did with the patch," he said.

"Thanks," she replied.

"Is that the reason you stole it?"

"No… I have a problem. I steal things. I'm a kleptomaniac."

"On top of being a nymphomaniac, too?"

"I'm a lot of things." Allison smiled quite smugly, and Andrew raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah, I can see that." He allowed himself to look away from her eyes momentarily, and look all over her face. Her hair had been pinned back neatly when he'd seen her earlier, but now strands were falling away and the small amount of black she had used around her eyes-because not even Claire could keep her from using it-had smudged more than maybe she'd meant it to, but he still liked what he saw.

"I can see what you are, too," she began.

"Oh yeah?"

"You're a sporto, a jock, and you've been following me." She was looking at him in a way again that almost read 'go on, I dare you'. He wanted to question her, ask why on earth he'd want to do that, answer her dare, but he said something else before he could even stop himself.

"I wanted to talk to you again."

"We're talking now."

"No, I mean… I imagined this conversation to be slightly different."

"How about a do over?"

"Do over?"

"Yeah, like… Hi, my name is Allison. No, I didn't butt in front of you at the water fountain earlier today. And even if I did, it was revenge for when you physically assaulted me on Saturday." Andy was taken aback at the harsh statement, but Allison was smiling at him in a way that showed him this was her sort of humour.

"You mean the kiss? You didn't seem to hate it too much at the time."

"Oh, I despised it. It was awful. Absolutely terrible." And the smile on her face lit up more, which made Andy's do the same.


	3. Chapter 3

At some point during lunch time, Andy and Allison managed to take each others eyes off one another long enough recognise that there were in fact others surrounding them, and they weren't closed off in their own little bubble no matter how much they wanted to be. Brian had been trying his hardest not to watch them, his face growing hotter as the moments passed out of pure embarrassment, while Claire made her staring very obvious. She was happy to be sat there, sure, but they really were missing someone glaringly obvious and it was making her feel strange. She never honestly thought she could and would miss John Bender, but at this moment she wanted nothing more than to be having playful banter with him, just like Allison and Andy.

It was Allison who had brought up Bender first. Claire didn't even have to speak about him before everyone else had decided to go find him. The only thing Claire was worried about then was her friends watching her leaving the cafeteria with an athlete, a basket-case and a brain. Her eyes scanned the room as they walked, landing back on her familiar lunch table every few seconds and watching the girls sat at it closely. She would be lying if it she had said it didn't set her a little on edge, and every time one of they moved she felt her stomach jump. The whole walk made her more nervous than John Bender ever had, which was truly saying something. But thankfully they managed to leave the room unnoticed, and Claire could finish holding onto her breath.

Allison knocked past her as they carried on walking.

"I saw you staring at your girly table. If you really wanted to go back to sit with them, you should've," she said, not turning back to look at Claire.

"I wasn't looking at them because I wanted to sit with them again!" Claire grew defensive, a common trait of hers.

"Oh yeah? Then you were worried what they would say if they saw you walking around with us," Andrew joined in.

"And what, you weren't? Give me a break, Andy, don't talk bull."

"Hey, leave him alone," Allison stopped in her tracks and caused Claire, who was too busy looking at Andy, to bang into her. Allison glared at Claire, and Claire met the stare back, pursing her lips and resting her hands on both of her hips.

"How about we all leave-we all leave each other alone and just act nicely, okay?" Brian interrupted, putting his hands in between the girls to separate them and then dropping them immediately once he noticed the stare he was getting from Andy after touching Allison.

"Brian's right…" Allison agreed, once she had stepped away, "We're all on edge today, and it sucks."

"Yeah," Claire joined in. She looked down at the ground, at her brand new boots and hem of her skirt, and scrunched up her face. "I'm really trying, though, you guys." They all seemed to accept Claire's excuse, because they carried on walking, all the while thinking about how hard they were trying, too.

Somewhere in between the main building and the football field, Allison had managed to acquire Andy's arm around her shoulder and his sweater tied around her waist. The weather wasn't too hot or too cold, but the wind was picking up by the time the large field was in sight and Claire could see the goosebumps on Andy's arms. Allison could even feel them against her because he was so close, but she never said anything, so neither did he.

Bender and Claire met somewhere in the middle.

But once the rest of the club had caught up with them, Claire felt overcrowded. It was Brian's idea for them all to sit on the bleachers for the rest of lunch and it was Bender's idea that they didn't cause a scene or draw any attention, because he had a rep to keep up with the 'under the bleachers' crowd. Claire had snorted and remarked that after all the shit he'd given her on Saturday, they weren't actually too unalike, but then he glared at her and she stopped.

When they all sat down, he didn't sit next to her, and it made her feel insecure.

Suddenly, her skirt felt too tight and her jacket made her feel too hot. She held her hands together, clasped in her lap, focusing her attention on everyone whose name wasn't John Bender.

She wasn't sure how he could go from smiling to glaring at her in just a few minutes and thinking about it made her feel even more uncomfortable with the group. It was just typical that on Saturday she could take all the stick he gave her and although she may have shed a few tears over it, in the end it actually made her feel a lot better about herself, because it had been necessary. But now he was avoiding looking at her just as much as she was avoiding looking at him, and she honestly felt like he was being unnecessarily stubborn and mean for no reason at all, other than for the sake of being so. If it wasn't for the others surrounding them, she would've called him out on his bullshit, but she wasn't exactly feeling her usual self today.

It was all his fault. She wanted to blame him for everything all of sudden. It was him that made her nervous to come to school today, nervous to see him because he gave her weird feelings and she hadn't figured out how to approach him. It was him that she couldn't keep her eyes off, even if she was attempting to ignore him, but as the others around her spoke and he lit up a cigarette, her eyes couldn't stop watching as he inhaled the smoke and then exhaled. It was him that had this power all of a sudden to make her feel so disappointed in herself just because he didn't smile at her again and chose to glare again. God, she wanted to hate him so much, but she couldn't.

Before any of them knew it, the bell was going for the end of lunch, and Brian was the first to jump up from his seat. Claire had been so distracted by her thoughts that she had missed most of the conversation going on around her, save for adding a few words here or there, and they had all noticed, though they never said anything about it. Brian gave her a reassuring smile as he put on his backpack and started walking down the bleacher steps, closely followed by Allison and Andy who all wanted to rightfully get to their classes on time. Bender stared at them as they walked, made no signs of moving, but that wasn't anything out of the ordinary. What was out of the ordinary was the fact Claire hadn't moved either, and didn't seem like she would anytime soon. Andy looked back at her.

"You not coming, Claire?"

"I think our princess is above getting to class on time, sporto," Bender added without looking up. Claire narrowed her eyes.

"I'm not the only one who isn't moving," she said.

"Yeah, well, I got somewhere better to be. What's your excuse? Don't want to walk with them?"

"It wouldn't surprise me," Allison added, looking at Claire and smirking, "she didn't want to be seen with us earlier."

"That's not true and you know it! Why are you lying?" Claire's voice was rising and shaking in a way she couldn't control, because she was getting even more upset now.

"Because you're too sensitive, you make it easy," the brunette replied back, then turned away and began across the field, wrapping an arm around Andy's hip and taking him with her. Brian looked again at Claire, at Bender and then jogged over to the pair so he could walk with them back to the main building. Claire stared at the three figures, biting the inside of her cheek to keep her from shouting anything at them or being completely pathetic and crying.

The bench shifted and she looked to see Bender standing up, lighting himself another cigarette as he did so. He didn't even look at her as he began down the stairs, so Claire stood up and marched after him.

"What was that? What is your problem?" she shouted after him.

"My problem?" he looked back at her, pointing at himself, and then threw his head back as he laughed.

"Yes, your problem. How can you just do that? Go from smiling at me to being pissed at me for no reason a second later? How is that fair?"

"Life isn't fair, red, you'll learn that once you're all moved out and you don't have your daddy's pay check supporting you anymore."

"That really isn't fair, you ass. You didn't even answer my question! Answer me!" She raced towards him and hit him gently on the back with her purse, forcing him to turn around to look at her. By now they were in the middle of the field, completely alone for the time being. John Bender finally looked at Claire properly, and her face softened, against her will.

"Because nothing changed! I don't have to treat you any different than I treat anybody else, and I don't need you giving me shit just because you think you deserve some sort of special treatment."

"I don't want special treatment, John, I want to be treated like a person. I don't deserve you to give me shit for doing nothing other than being myself. I'm sorry that I'm rich, I'm sorry that I'm embarrassed about being seen with different people, but that's the way I am," she threw her hands up in the air, "I don't know what else to say!" He took another drag from his cigarette, and didn't respond to her, so Claire gave up. "You know what, never mind. I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, John. I wanted to... I don't know, make you happy because I wasn't going to just ignore everyone, you especially. I thought things were different between us but obviously not. But maybe, just maybe, I'm not the only one with my head up my own ass, did that ever cross your mind?"

His eyes widened and his nostrils flared, but he still didn't say anything to her.

"I can't believe this… I can't believe I spent a weekend…" her voice quietened to a mutter, "I fucking lost sleep trying to think of what to say to you."

"What was that?"

"Oh, now you'll talk to me."

"You lost sleep over me?" There was a smile growing on his face, and it made Claire feel nauseous and lightheaded at the same time.

"Don't get any sick ideas," she said, holding up a finger to point at him, as if she was scolding him. By now, Bender looked amused.

"Me? Sick ideas? Cherry, what sort of person do you take me for?"

"The worst kind."

"But that doesn't stop you from thinking about me." Claire folded her arms in front of her, and John mirrored her, as if mocking her.

"No, it doesn't." He nodded, looking her up and down, pausing for a moment as if he was in thought.

"You got somewhere to be right now or do you want to take a walk on the wild side?"

"I'm not that sort of girl!"

"Please, you wish. You take me for some sort of dirty pervert?"

"Yes."

"Funny," he laughed once, then shook his head to move his hair out of his face, "Follow me." Then he turned and began to walk, which didn't exactly give Claire any sort of a choice of whether to stay of go. She glared at his back, but followed him all the same, hoisting her bag strap back onto her shoulder as she went.

John led her back towards the bleacher, and all the way behind them. Claire had never been so far before. Sure, she'd seen what it looked like under there, but only because it was where people would sometimes go to make out privately or go to smoke. The last time she had even been near them was when Heather was dating a jock and Claire was sent to go tell them that they were going to get into serious trouble if they skipped another class to play tonsil hockey again. That was back in freshman year, but two years on the scenery hadn't changed much. Bender was still leading the way, with her trailing behind, so it gave her a chance to look around as long as she still stayed close behind him. She noted the strong smell of tobacco and the heavy amount of litter on the floor, presumably from people sitting above and all of the burners who sat around here, Bender included. As they continued walking, she watched him flick his cigarette onto the ground and stomp it out, then continue walking. Her environmentally inclined girlfriends would have a field day if they had witnessed it.

Eventually Bender reached a group of similar looking guys sitting around, who all acknowledged his presence. Claire came up behind Bender, almost hiding behind him in the best way she could, and immediately felt out of place. There were three other boys, each with varieties of long hair and dark clothing. One guy was wearing a rock t-shirt, another had hair down to his shoulders, and the third looked so off his face that Claire wasn't sure if he was even awake. These must have been the friends Bender briefly mentioned during detention.

She was aware of eyes on her, John's included. She met his stare and smiled politely, and he smiled back. It wasn't friendly, but it was daring. He was daring her to belittle him, laugh at him, daring her to be her usual bitch self, the bitch that he thought she was. But Claire wouldn't bite, and never would've. She was going to prove herself to John Bender, if it was the last thing she did.

"You wanna sit down?" she asked him, motioning over to a space on the floor. She hoped that at least showed him she was willing to try and hang out with him and get along. His face didn't falter as he looked at her-he was so hard to read-and he nodded and then they sat. Claire tucked her knees up and leant back on the grass, and Bender found a metal pole for him to lean his back against. He watched her settle down, making sure she didn't notice him. She didn't seem too bothered to sit on the muddy floor, and she didn't seem to care how much trash was around the dump he called his favourite hang out spot. In fact, he was kind of impressed with her willingness to be with him here, but he would never admit to that. He was still an island in his mind, and he doubted Claire even truly cared.

Before Bender lit himself up another cigarette, he paused to let the other guys know that the red-haired broad accompanying him was Claire, to which Weaver replied with 'I know'. Claire rolled her eyes, but remained interested to know who they all were. It was simple; there was Weaver, of course, Scissors, and Bates.

"Nothing too strenuous to remember, princess," John told Claire. She glared at him.

"Are those nicknames all your last names?" she asked. They all nodded, except for Scissors.

"I don't know why they call me Scissors. It just happened one day and that shit stuck. My real last name is Clarkson, and that's boring as shit anyway." Scissors was the one, Claire noted, wearing the 'Motorhead' t-shirt-a band completely out of her genre of music.

"So, Claire, what's your last name?" Bates, the long-haired one asked.

"It's Standish, but I like Claire." She really couldn't care less what they called her, but the whole last name thing was strange to her. It was so informal, and almost quite 'clique'-y in a way. Sure, none of these guys belonged to a club or had a name to define themselves other than burners, perhaps, but they almost matched each other. Part of her was comforted by it though, because it was nice to see Bender had a comfortable environment to hang around in. It was especially comforting after some of the things he had told her on Saturday. Her eyes flashed to his arm, where he had pulled up the sleeve to show his scars, but yet again none were on show because they were covered by his thick jacket. Her eyes worked their way up his body, lingering on his face as she watched him take another drag from his cigarette. Bender caught her staring, and Claire blushed but didn't look away.

"You staring because you want some?" Claire looked from his face and down at his cigarette, but decided against it. She had tried before, Saturday being a prime example, but Claire really did care a lot about herself and she knew getting into that stuff just wouldn't be a good idea. She quickly shook her head, but remembered to thank Bender anyway for the offer with a smile. "I wasn't talking about the cigarette, princess." Her face quickly shifted into that of a glare shot in Bender's direction.

"Pig!"

* * *

John couldn't keep his eyes off of her, and it fucking sucked. She was sat next to him now, having moved around after complaining she couldn't get comfortable, and the short distance between them was intoxicating to him. He hadn't spoken since he'd offered her a cigarette, but Claire was speaking to his friends and actually getting along with them, which was a strange concept to him. He wanted to be pissed off by it, he wanted to tell her to fuck off back to her prissy friends and leave him alone with his, but then he didn't want to spoil anything.

Because as much as part of him hated it, it worked. Having her hang round under the bleachers, just sitting; it worked. As long as she didn't mind it, that was. Realistically speaking, if anything happened between them, there would be a way for them to work. But he didn't want her or anybody to know he was thinking like that, so he pushed the thought out of his mind as he carried on chain smoking and purposely ignoring Claire.

They didn't speak again until the final bell of the day went off, and they both got up to leave the bleachers. Claire had surprised herself in that she had actually enjoyed talking to Bender's friends. The conversations were brief consistently and had no meaning, but she liked it like that. She was finally talking about something other than other people's problems and secrets like she did with her girlfriends, and she genuinely felt like the guys hadn't minded her there once she got a little more settled in. They even began to call her Standish, despite her original protests, which she didn't mind altogether in the end because it made her feel kind of cool, in a different way to how she already felt.

The pair were halfway across the field when Claire broke the silence.

"I liked your friends." Bender nodded, then stopped, and looked over at her.

"Listen, red, this is gonna sound stupid as shit, but I only acted like an ass earlier because I couldn't shake the thought that none of this would work." When Claire didn't say anything, he continued, "I kept thinking, I'm gonna see her, I'm gonna speak to her, but it's not the same with other people around. It's not always a Saturday."

"You thought I'd only speak to you on Saturdays?"

"No, I thought you'd only like me on Saturdays. I didn't think you'd like me today."

"I don't like anyone on a Monday," Claire laughed, trying to turn the conversation into a light hearted one. Bender glared at her, and she stopped immediately.

"I'm being serious, don't fucking laugh at me. I'm trying to talk to you like a person here, remember?" Claire nodded at him, pursing her lips and waiting for him to go on. "I just wanted you to know that, that I don't hate you. None of them hate you, but I bet you think they do because they're just giving you a hard time and you're feeling sorry for yourself."

"It's not nice to always be shouted at and judged because of where I come from."

"Yeah? Well now you know how it feels." Claire looked away from John's eyes and onto the ground, suddenly feeling like his stare was burning. She heard him sigh next to her, but she didn't feel his eyes leave her. "You should get going, princess. Don't keep daddy waiting." John began to walk again and Claire was going to let him go, but she knew she'd always kick herself for it if she did.

"Wait! John, wait," she called after him, jogging to catch up with him again. He turned his head to look back at her and it was immediately encased between both of Claire's hands as she held onto him while she connected her lips to his in such a haste that it would have knocked him off his feet if he hadn't been weighed down by his heavy boots. He could feel the warmth of her slender hands pressed against his cheeks, her rings and manicured nails digging into his skin as her lips moved against his, urging him to move his back against hers. So he did, encircling his arms around Claire's slim waist, holding her against him, her chest against his, and he realised didn't want to let this girl go.

She pulled away before he was finished, and stepped away from him before he could bring her back.

"What was that for?" John asked, trying his hardest not to sound completely confused or blown away, "I was an ass to you."

"I'm sorry, okay? I wanted to kiss you and I'm sorry for being a bitch," she replied, her voice was soft like the feeling of her skin against Bender's rough face.

"I should make you feel like a bitch more often if that's what I get in return." The cockiness was back and as was his smirk, and Claire replied by gently hitting his chest.

"Look, I gotta go for real, I'm meeting with my friends tonight. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"You'll see me around." Bender shook hair away from his face, and a glint of something shiny came from his ear. Claire immediately recognised it as her earring.

"Bye, John," she said, her mouth wide with a grin, then began to walk away.

"Later, princess."

John Bender didn't move until Claire had left the field. He didn't even watch her ass move as she walked, though it was very tempting with the skirt she was wearing, because he suddenly felt like he couldn't look at her in that way. No, instead, he watched her red hair bob up and down and smiled at the little skip in her step that she had. Claire Standish reminded him on the surface of every cheesy pop song that had ever been written, but he knew deep down she was more than that. And he actually wanted to stick around to find that girl.


	4. Chapter 4

When John Bender left school that same day and started on his way home, he still hadn't shaken Claire from his mind.

His usual journey from Shermer high remained the same every day. From the school, he would make his way to the local parks that was so large you could cut through it to get to the other side of town. He would walk at a leisurely pace, as if he had all of the time in the world, and once he reached the edge of the green, he would stop in at one of the nearby stores and purchase himself a pack of cigarettes, because he usually just about finished up half a pack while walking. He smoked like a chimney, swore like a sailor and spat like a wildcat the whole time, scaring off children, earning glares from parents and ensuring that his walk was as secluded and peaceful as possible.

That Monday wasn't really all that different. The weather was overcast, so there weren't many kids in the park and the cafes he passed were near empty, save for a few old people sat in the windows. Bender dug into his pockets, emptying them of change to see if he had enough for anything to drink, but he never did. He quickly stuffed the money back into his coat and walked on a bit faster, pretending to himself that he didn't want a drink anyway.

In his mind, it felt different.

The chill of the wind got him on the back of his neck, and his hands felt like they were burning from either the cold or the places they had touched, like Claire Standish's body.

Bender really hated himself. As much and as hard as he tried, he couldn't stop thinking about her and it was making him want to skip his cigarettes, quieten his mouth and swallow his saliva; it was making him want to be something else.

He was truly lying if he claimed to be unintimidated by the sort of person Claire was. It wasn't that she was popular in school and technically out of his league, because he didn't give a shit about anything like that, but it was where she stood in the world. Girls like the princess she was really did have that kind of status in the real world, and they never ever went for guys like him-the criminal. He was sure she had to have been lying when she claimed to be a virgin, never-been-kissed with tongue, loyal to one guy type of girl. She could have anyone she wanted at the snap of her fingers, even both of the guys that had been in detention with them, and it made him feel even worse. John Bender knew he wasn't special, and it was something that was engraved deeply into his soul.

For as long as he could remember, he knew he wasn't worthy of anything. His home life guaranteed he knew that much from a very early age, but he heard it elsewhere as well. At school, it was all he heard every time Vernon called him up on something. Sometimes he would pass the jocks in the hall and they'd mime spitting on him, as if he was nothing, and girls would glare at him as if he was the muck on the bottom of their Prada shoes. But he'd learned to get over it. He didn't care that he was treated this way, and found it odd if he wasn't. So when Claire started actually taking an interest, he shoved her away from him as fast as he knew he could. When she'd come to find him on the field, he almost thought it was some sort of practical joke. He felt like Brian, the kid that everyone always picked on, or Larry Lester, the guy that Andy had tormented. In his mind he couldn't shake the fact that these sort of people, Claire's sort of people, were supposed to see him as a lesser being. For her to see him differently just wasn't how it worked.

But when did he ever play by the rules? That was a trick question: he didn't. John always found a way around everything; a more convenient way, a more practical way, or a more funny in a sick kind of way. When he'd been locked in that closet, he'd found a way out via the school's vent system. When he'd pulled the schools fire alarm that earned himself the Saturday detention in the first place, he got away from the wrath of Dick by climbing out of one of the second-floor classroom windows and shimmying down onto the field to join everyone else who had evacuated the building. When someone called him out on his means of escape, he told them he was in such a panic he couldn't think of any other way to get outside than via the open window. When Dick called him out on it, he didn't let Bender speak, but instead told him that he was an attention-seeking brat who was going to get his comeuppance very soon.

Bender couldn't help but feel a slight pity for himself. Was Saturday really a comeuppance? And if it wasn't, was there something else coming up for him? Sure, he had the rest of the next two months full of Saturday's at school, but he hardly saw how those would make him regret any of his actions. He didn't regret anything.

Claire didn't regret anything either. Not even kissing Bender out of place on the field earlier, an action so surprising that he'd actually questioned it. He wasn't the sought, she thought, to turn down random make out sessions, but then maybe she didn't know him as well as she had thought.

After walking away from the field that day, Claire went to find her friends so they could hang out. It had been a few days since they had hit up the mall and the other girls were pining to get new clothes. But not Claire. Shopping had always been one of her favourite past times, right after painting her nails and doing her hair, but now she found the whole idea vapid, and realised how vapid she once was, too. Still, she followed the other girls around like she was a lost puppy dog, fingering through racks of sweaters and eyeing over different styles of shoes, never actually bothering to look at the things properly or take the whole trip seriously. She was just finding something to do to keep herself connected to the conversation and not drift off into another daydream, but it didn't work. She remained miles away, deep in thought, barely keeping up with the talks long enough to add anything of worth-not that the topics they were talking about were really worth anything. Her friends, Heather, Benny and Steff, picked up on her distance straight away, but failed to say anything until they were in the car driving back home.

"Claire? Claire? Steff just asked you a question," Benny said, shaking Claire by the upper arm. Benny was sat next to Claire in Heather's father's cadillac that he let her drive on weekends, now including Monday's and Friday's. Claire quickly snapped to it, blushing furiously for having been caught out in such a deep daydream. The manner of the daydream made it worse; she had been remembering what John was wearing today, remembering the way he flicked her hair and the way his arms felt when he held her, how his body felt so big compared to hers.

"What? Oh god, I'm sorry. I totally zoned out," she quickly said, looking around at all of the girls. Benny was giving her a disapproving look, but Steff seemed more sympathetic.

"Benny, don't freak. It's obvious that it's Claire's time of the month, that's why she's had such a moody look on her face all day," Steff began, speaking as if she knew everything in the world. Claire couldn't help but think of how little she actually did know because she'd got it all completely wrong, but Steff was her friend and she would never say such a thing like that. She bit her lip as Steff continued, "Claire, if you need anything, like a xanax… or a tampon… I got you covered, alright?" Steff smiled at her, and Claire smiled weakly back, turning to look away from them all again. At least now Steff had made such a statement to the whole car, they wouldn't bother again for the rest of the journey.

She went back to thinking about John at lunch time. She couldn't get his image out of her mind; of him laughing, of him glaring, of him focusing intently on lighting his damn cigarette multiple times because obviously he enjoyed chain smoking. Most of all, she was thinking about his words to her before they had separated, how he told her she would see him around soon. It was that sentence that set a small amount of hope inside of her. She would see him soon, and she didn't know how soon John's 'soon' was, but it at least meant he wasn't going to ignore her anymore. And hopefully it meant that he wasn't going to give her shit anymore.

It always took a lot for Claire Standish to like a guy. She had told her friends recently, before her detention, ironically, that she wanted to attend prom alone. Shermer high school lacked in suitable companions for her pickiness, she explained to them, and Claire had a lot of specifics. She liked men as opposed to boys, who were witty and charming, and who made her knees weak on several occasions. In total, she had kissed three guys in her whole lifetime, but none of them brought everything she wanted to the table. So she concluded that what she needed was an older guy, a college guy. Someone she could proudly hold hands with and hang out with all the time, because he'd be a friend as well as a lover, and her friends wouldn't even be mad for her blowing them off because he'd be so charming that they'd all like him, too.

John was hardly that sort of guy, but she liked the idea of seeing what it would be like to hold his hand, under his fingerless gloves. She wondered if he'd ever done that with a girl before, especially since he didn't believe in one guy one girl-or as he had told her. But despite never seeing him around school before, she knew most people's businesses and she knew that no girl from Shermer had been one of the girls he'd claimed to consider. So either he got around town a lot, or he was just lying to her to seem cooler and more mysterious. She kind of hoped the latter was true, but it didn't make him seem aloof to her at all. It made him seem like he was lonely, and more importantly it made her feel more compelled to let him know that while she was willing to kiss him, she wasn't willing to share him with other people.

_That kiss_. Claire couldn't stop replaying the moment in her mind of when she had kissed him and everything stopped around her. It was different to their kiss on Saturday, where she knew her dad would be watching and she knew she couldn't carry it on as long as she or he wanted to. But on the field earlier that day, there was no one else around and it gave them so much more freedom. She finally got to touch John, hold him close to her, feel his arms around her. She had her hands on his skin and in his hair, feeling the material of his jacket and of everywhere in between. And that was the kind of kiss she had always been saving herself for. That was the kind of kiss that she knew would change things for her. But what she didn't expect was the fact that things felt different even before they kissed, and the kiss only secured that feeling more.

A college boy didn't seem enough anymore. She wanted a man who could hold his own and wouldn't let people walk all over him. She liked the rebel type, she had realised, and not just because it made her feel rebellious, too. If she was completely honest to herself, she found the whole idea of John Bender so sexy, but that was something she would never tell him in a million years, because he would just laugh at her and tease her.

If she was thinking realistically, everyone would laugh and tease her for Bender. All of her friends would think she was off her nut, surely desperate for a date to the prom that she collared herself a burner, and she would be the talk of the school. Even the nerdier kids would look at her weirdly, because they'd all be wondering what she was doing with someone like John. She hated thinking like that, she hated that it had to be that way, but she knew her and John had a million things going against them to prevent them from ever being anything, even just friends.

But Claire liked a challenge, and John liked the attention. And both of them mutually liked each other, though they still had to truly admit that to themselves, so all hope was not lost.

* * *

When John got home, the lights were out and he could hear the TV on loud in the living room. He felt the wall to find the light switch, and almost went to switch it on, but then he heard his mom giggling in the living room and it interrupted him from what he was about to do. Nobody in his house ever laughed, or even smiled much nowadays, so to hear the action awoke him up immediately and he carried on into the house in the dark.

He found both of his parents sat together on the sofa watching Dallas. His dad was throwing back a bottle of beer, like usual, and his mom was smiling at the screen, her eyes squinted and her head leant on her husband's shoulder. The image sickened him, because John wasn't fooled by it. His mom had just taken her anti-depression pills, which she got given after lying to the doctor and telling him that her bruises were from hurting herself, and whenever she took them she was overly happy for the first couple of hours because she always, always, took too many. She had a period of pure joy, and then in two hours time she would be on the floor, crying inconsolably and John's dad would be shouting at her to pull herself together, and the whole cycle would continue. She only usually took the pills at the weekend, though, and Bender had learned the times she would come down so he could avoid them. Taking pills on a Monday was a new thing, and it sent John on edge.

The living room was a wide open space with no door, that led straight to the master bedroom, bathroom and, a little down the hall, John's room. Sometimes he was able to sneak past them, especially when the lights were off, and go to his room unnoticed. He wasn't so lucky tonight.

"Oh, Johnny's home," his mom said softly, smiling at the boy that had stopped dead in his tracks now he had been noticed. John turned and smiled at his mom, but then remember she couldn't see it in the dark he said a simple 'hi' back to her, his voice coming out dry. Chancing his bets, he went back to walking to his room, but his dad stopped him.

"Sit down, boy. We're watching TV together tonight." Just as John had thought. He gulped and turned back, going back to the living room and finding a space on the rundown sofa next to his mom. She pulled him to her and gave him a hug; she smelt of cheap perfume and cigarettes, and when she pulled away and he looked at her, he could see a new purple bruise around her right eye. She blinked at him, an act that made her seem so distant, and then turned back to the TV.

John tried his hardest to focus completely on the show. It was a rerun-he remembered his mom watching it a few nights before-and Peter was yet again being screwed over by J.R. The storyline was repetitive and the characters made Bender feel nauseated, but he knew better than to complain about watching it, at least while his dad was around. As another scene flashed onto the scene, he could feel his dad's eyes on him, but John stayed still, not moving, his eyes burning from the light from the tele.

His dad lit up a cigar, then spoke while letting out a grey cloud, "What's that in your ear?" John didn't make any movements, but inside he had already began running. The earring from Claire was still in his ear, he hadn't yet taken it out, but it figured his dad would notice it straight away.

"Nothing, dad," he said as calmly as he could muster. It wasn't good enough for his father.

"What is this, a diamond earring?" his dad said, putting his hand up to John's ear and yanking at it to get a better look at the stud. John winced, but nodded. "Where the fuck did you get that from? Is it your mothers? Have you been stealing again?"

"No, dad, I got it from my friend." John looked down, his dad's hand was still on his ear and his mom was still watching Dallas.

"I don't believe you, you lying son of a bitch. You stole this, didn't you? Looks like the ones I got your mom a few years back. How dare you steal from us, you freeloader." His voice was getting louder, and John instinctively squirmed away from him, releasing his ear from his grasp.

"I didn't steal it from mom! It's a real diamond, not some cheap plastic shit that you gave her," John said, getting up from the coach to make a quick exit. His dad stood up too and grabbed him before he could leave.

"What the fuck did you just say? Why the fuck do you have real diamonds? Why would anyone give that to you? You worthless, retarded, pain in my ass."

John glared at him, and couldn't stop himself from muttering, "Fuck you."

And that was when his dad hit him square in the jaw.

* * *

For dinner, the Standish housekeeper, Ms. Watanabe, made Claire her favourite selection of sushi because she was eating alone again tonight. Her parents had an evening event at the country club they were part of, so they'd left a few hours earlier and let Claire have the house to herself, while Ms. Watanabe came in and out to do her nightly chores. Once the food was prepared, Claire thanked the older woman and went to sit down in the next room at the large dining table on her own. Feeling sorry for the girl, Ms. Watanabe-first name Mai-followed her and took a seat in the chair just next to her. Claire broke her pout for a moment to smile at her, then went back to staring at her plate of food.

"Is something bothering you, sweet girl?" Mai asked, extending her hand across the table to hold Claire's in her own.

Claire and Mai had a very close bond, ever since she was a little girl. Mai had started working for the Standish family before Claire was even born, and she was in charge of both Claire and her brother whenever her parents were working or busy, which was a lot, so Mai became a second mother to the children. Now, with Claire's brother having moved out, Mai Watanabe was the only person Claire really had at home who listened to her, and was around to ask her about her day, and help her out with her problems. Claire had always been thankful for it; she didn't know what she would have done without Mai.

"I love how you always know," Claire said, smiling at her and allowing her to hold her hand, giving her small, slightly rough hand a squeeze.

"Ah, it's because you pout differently when you are sad. Even when you are happy you are pouty, but when sad the corners of your lips turn downwards like this." Mai pulled at her face, making her lips turn downwards like she claimed Claire's did, and it earned a laugh from the red-haired teenager.

"I'm not really sad. I'm just thinking a lot."

"About schoolwork?"

"Not really."

"Prom?"

Claire shook her head.

"A boy?"

Claire tried her hardest not to smile to give the game away, but she couldn't stop herself. Mai giggled as if she was still a schoolgirl, and leaned in closer to Claire.

"Tell me, is he cute? What does he look like?" Claire rolled her eyes, but decided to humour Ms. Watanabe.

"I didn't think he was cute when I first met him. And I hated him for a while so I thought he was sickening. But now... okay, yes, he's cute. He has longish hair and really brown eyes, and gorgeous tan skin and… I don't want to like him, Mai, I really don't." Claire sighed and Mai pouted back at her, attempting to mirror Claire's signature face.

"Why don't you want to like him?"

"It's just complicated like that. It would be better for both of us not to like each other. I don't know about him, but it's too late for me, I guess." Mai nodded, taking in the information, then wrapped her other hand around Claire's and looked at her directly.

"Claire, we wish we could control who our heart finds, but it doesn't work that way, you know. I meet my husband when I was young girl, like your age long ago, and he was just man on market who kept coming to my fathers stall. I could tell, oh, he is not very rich, just by looking at his clothes. My family were poor in Japan, why would they want me to get an even poorer boyfriend? But he kept coming to see me, he buy food just to speak to me. I fell in love with him, I cried about it for days because my family were so against it. But I had to accept that I love him, you know?"

"What happened?"

"Well, I became Mrs. Watanabe, and my family learned to accept, too. I loved my husband so much, best thing I ever did was looking past what I thought he was, and finding who he was inside. I thought I shouldn't love him, but I did so much." Claire looked down at the table, pressing her lips together, truly taking in everything Mai was saying.

"Where is your husband now, Mai?" she asked softly.

"He die before I come to America. Before we have children. That's why I come here, I look after children here instead. Me and him always wanted our family, we would have little boy and little girl, like you and your brother. But he die of cholera, he got very sick. When he die I cried for weeks, I still sometimes cry now. Because I really love him, Claire, you know? That is why if you meet nice man, don't judge him. Don't listen to what people say. You just love him, because it is best thing you'll ever do. Do it while you're still young and he is still alive."

Claire looked at Mai, and felt her bottom lip trembling. Before she could help herself, a tear had slipped from her eye and was running down her cheek, and she began to cry for Mai and for herself, and for everything she was now feeling. Ms. Watanabe pulled her into a hug, and they stayed like that for a long time.


	5. Chapter 5

"C'mon, pull it together!

Andrew Clark's dad was lecturing him for not paying attention during practice. He wasn't the only one who had noticed, the whole team had. Andy was trying, he really was, but as he got knocked out of the ring for the 4th time in the day, even he could appreciate being called out for playing so poorly. The truth was, like John and like Claire, his mind was distracted by all that had happened during the week. He hadn't spoken to Allison properly in a couple of days as they had both been busy with their respective lives, but every time they passed each other in the hallway-which was a rarity-they would exchange smiles and he was noticing that she was looking more and more radiant as the week went on.

The closest they got to a conversation was on Tuesday, when he had stopped right in front of her locker while she was putting away some of the contents of her bag. That surprised him, because he knew that she always carried around all of belongings as a 'just in case'. He had been about to ask her what she was doing, and had already begun by saying hi, when his words got stuck in his mouth and he froze, and was found by his friends just in time to pull him away from Allison and away from his opportunity. He had been kicking himself ever since.

It seemed as though, since then at least, that the girl had been avoiding him. He hadn't seen or heard from her in any way, and if he asked Claire about her she would just stare at him blankly. He knew deep down that she honestly didn't care as much for Allison as she tried to make herself and everyone else believe. He figured it might even be harder for both of them than for anyone else, being that they were both girls in a very judgmental high school. In fact, they seemed to bicker whenever they were around each other. Andrew just put it down to the fact they were girls, and that was what he was always told girls do.

But what did he honestly know about girls? The correct answer to that would be nothing. He was far from the playboy jock stereotype that was forced upon him and his friends. The rest of the school kind of expected it of them; they were in excellent shape, decent looking, hot-blooded males who enjoyed beers at the weekend and women on the side. It was out of the ordinary for someone like him to get nervous and not know how to deal with girls; even worse if they didn't know how to talk to them, which was Andy's true dilemma. He was still thinking about freezing up in front of Allison earlier in the week. He wanted so badly to be cool around her, to reek of the effortlessness of it like she did to him, because she never seemed nervous when he was around. For the first time he wanted to be more like his friends, the ones that could have any girl they wanted while still being able to devote their whole attention to their game when it was needed. That was something Andy couldn't quite get the hang of.

He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut, and his dad grunted at him, then walked off.

His lecture was the same every time, no matter how hard Andy tried. Unless he played perfectly, he wasn't a winner to his father. He was never good enough for him.

He opened his eyes again to watch his father walk away, and he could feel a glare growing on his face as he truly felt like he was on the verge of being done with the bullying every single practice. His fists clenched and he quickly excused himself from the ring to sit down and 'cool off' for a few minutes.

The brief time the athletes were given to relax themselves was always a godsend, and at this moment Andy felt like he'd never needed anything more in his life.

From the time he had arrived at the gym, up until now, his mind was on what he would say to Allison the next time he saw her. He vowed to walk up to her, in the middle of the hallway for all to see, and he wouldn't forget his words this time. They were so well-rehearsed in his mind-he had been practising them every time he was pushed out of the ring-and he knew they were good, enough so that he was satisfied. He had the idea that he might just run up to her and kiss her the next time they were in the same room, but even he knew he didn't have enough confidence to pull that one off. He tried to hide it and play it off, but deep down he wasn't a cocky and confident guy, like all of his friends. He was Andrew Clark, and he was scared.

He was scared of messing up again, in case his dad scolded him for it. His father had never hit him physically, but he could pack a punch verbally with some of the things he had said to him in the past, and deprived him of. It didn't sound like much to many people, and almost might seem quite pathetic to some, but on a few occasions Andrew had been forbidden to leave the house for a week, apart from school and practice, and the whole ordeal always made him want to rip his own hair out.

He was scared of talking to a girl. Just a standard girl who probably thought he was a complete fool for the way he acted around her. It hadn't always been like that, though he had always shown interest in her. It was just recently she set him on edge, since he got to know about her home life. It wasn't that he was worried about her, more that he was worried about himself. To get in with someone like that would be like diving in at the deep end. Both of them would have more to deal with than they did already. Since he had realised that, only very recently, he had been scared.

He was scared of the thoughts he had of just quitting these things all together and pushing everything away from himself. He would be lying if he tried to claim that he'd never considered giving up wrestling. On the contrary, it was something that he thought of every week when practice got exceptionally tough, or he lost a meet and let everyone down. He had a lot riding on his shoulders, and everyone made sure to make him aware of that, which was exactly why he knew he couldn't just give it up. If he did, he'd lose his friends, his status, his relationship with his father, his hobby, his ride to college, and perhaps most importantly: himself. What was he without the wrestling title? Who cared about Andrew Clark if he wasn't the school's champion?

He couldn't quit, and he couldn't become so distracted by Allison.

As he entered the ring again, he shoved it all to the back of his mind. He forgot about his father's tense words and the worries he had about his future in wrestling, and focused completely on shoving the guy in front of him out of the ring as quickly as he could. He even tried to get rid of the thoughts of the girl who was haunting him, pretending she simply didn't exist just for five minutes.

But then Andy was on the floor in minutes and called out for the rest of the session, having lost too many times, and his dad was already on his way over to give him a piece of his mind all over again.

This was going to cause a problem.

* * *

John Bender didn't come to school for the rest of the week. Claire Standish had smirked and remarked to herself how true to his word he was when he told her she would see him around instead of tomorrow. Still, it had made her kind of sad for reasons she deemed incredibly stupid.

On Wednesday, Claire hitched a ride with her dad on his way to work and arrived at school on her own, free from her usual gaggle of girls. In a spur of the moment, total 'why the hell not' idea, she decided to hang around the front of the building to see if she could catch John, wondering if it would knock him off his guard to see her waiting there for him. She doubted he would walk right in through the front door-this was Bender, after all-but she kept her eyes peeled none the less. Ten minutes passed and she tried waiting around the side. And then around the back. Finally, she set on her way towards the field and the bleachers, to see if she could see him smoking under there. It made her think herself stupid; if John wanted to be seen smoking and skiving off lessons, he wouldn't hide right behind the back of the seats, but she tried to look for him anyway.

The bell rang and she waited as long as she could, but he was a no show. Claire walked into her first period that day with her cheeks burning the color of her hair; red, with embarrassment.

She wanted to save herself the disappointment of looking for him on Thursday only for him to ditch again, but when her father offered her a ride again and she decided to take it, Claire couldn't help but delay going into the building as long as she could. She found herself cursing at her stupid timetable, angry that she was in no classes with John and their lockers were presumably far away from each other, because she never saw him in the hall.

By Friday, she stopped blaming her timetable, and blamed it on John. It was almost a week since they had met, and already he was blowing her off because he obviously had something so much better to do with his time than see her. It all made her feel so stupid and worked up. Stupid because she was assuming he would know she was looking for him, and worked up because he _should_ know she would be looking for him. It wasn't like she went around making out with guys in fields and then never seeing them again. If he knew her at all, which she doubted now, he would expect nothing less than for her to at least look out for him around the school. She thought she had proved to him by now that she wasn't going to just ignore him. But now it was a role reversal, because she felt like he was ignoring her.

By Friday lunch time, after watching Andy storm past her right up to Allison in the middle of the hallway and begin a conversation in front of everyone, Claire decided to take matters into her own hands. In a matter of 10 minutes she had excused herself from her friends, dumped her lunch in the trash, and marched out to the field all the way to the bleachers. She knew instinctively where she was going, though it was only because John had shown her days before. As she walked, Claire attempted to hold her head high and keep her brow furrowed as an attempt to show her disapproval of Bender's actions on her face, but when she turned the corner and was faced with the group of teens a few steps away from her, she tensed up. She really hadn't thought this through.

Before she could turn back, though, Scissors looked up at her and lifted his hand to wave. She waved back, and gulped in her dry mouth, then walked forward.

It was all wrong. There was Scissors and Weaver sitting together helping each other roll a suspicious looking cigarette, and a long haired boy sitting next to a blonde girl who looked just as dirty and dishevelled as all of the guys did. Claire bit her lip, expecting to see John's face looking at her when the boy turned his head, but when he did Claire saw that it was Bates. John wasn't sat with them and, upon glancing around quickly, Claire couldn't see him anywhere.

"What do you want?" the blonde girl suddenly spoke up, glaring up at Claire and interrupting Claire's thoughts abruptly. The usually defiant and catty girl suddenly felt very small and very alone without John standing beside her or sitting next to her.

"Chill out, Kim, Standish is cool," Scissors said, nodding his head at Claire as a sort of reassurance of said coolness, then going back to focusing on what he and Weaver were doing. Claire smiled briefly at him, then looked back at the girl, who she assumed now was called Kim.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Claire Standish," she said, holding out a hand to the girl, who looked at it as if it was covered in filth. Claire put her hand away, and made a mental note that the burners didn't like that sort of greeting.

"Kim. And, may I ask, Miss Standish," Kim began, imitating Claire's much higher voice, "what you are doing here? Whatever would your mommy say if she saw you with us!"

Claire's eyes narrowed instinctively. "I'm looking for John. Bender. I haven't seen him since Monday." Scissors, Weaver and Bates shared a look, but didn't say anything.

"Why should we tell you? Are you his new plaything?" Kim asked, raising her eyebrows and smirking at Claire, as if a title like that suddenly reduced her.

"Don't make me throw up."

Kim got up from the ground and walked over to Claire, and she noted her attire. Torn, baggy blue jeans, a dark t-shirt and duffel coat. Her long blonde hair was shiny at the ends, but knatted at the top where Claire assumed Kim had attempted to backcomb it to add to her messy look. If she had met her on any other day, Claire wouldn't have even wasted her time on a girl like her, but she didn't want to be that sort of person anymore. Especially if this girl was one of John's friends.

"What's wrong with that? I was his plaything once. Oh, we had a great time together, me and him," Kim said, and Claire felt herself pale as she frantically searched her mind to remember if Kim's picture had been in John's wallet.

"Shut up, Kim, stop being a bitch," Bates said from the floor, "don't listen to her, Standish. She wishes Bender would take notice of her." Kim looked back at Bates, glaring at him, and nudged him with her foot. Then she looked back at Claire and looked her up and down. Quite frankly, Claire had seen enough.

"Well, thank you all for your time. Good bye." Claire looked at them all once more, then turned and walked away as quickly as she could without jogging or running.

Nobody had seen John, and now Kim was involved in the whole thing. If she hadn't known any better, she would've called what she was feeling right now jealousy. But she was _the_ Claire Standish, and she had kissed John's lips twice and she knew he had enjoyed it as much as she had. What was there to be jealous of?

* * *

On Friday night, Allison's sister came home from college to visit, and their mother insisted on the family eating their dinner at the kitchen's dining table for the first time in two years. Allison was made to set it out while her mother prepared the food, her father got changed from work, and her sister lazed on the sofa to recover from what her mom classed as a 'long drive', if you could really call an hour-long car drive that. Despite both being in the kitchen together at the same time, Allison never spoke to her mom. She never spoke to her dad when he arrived home, and when her sister, Jennifer, walked in the front door she just about managed a smile. Her family didn't expect or want anything more from her, so she got away from it.

Allison used her brief solitude before dinner to leave herself alone with her thoughts for a while.

It had been a strange and confusing week for her. As it had gone on, she found herself digging deeper into the back of her closet to find more interesting and colourful clothing for herself to wear to school, as opposed to the same all black every day. Today she had even worn a pair of blue jeans that her mom had bought her three years ago. They were a tight squeeze because she'd grown since then, but that was the last thing she had cared about. She dressed them with a deep purple blouse and pulled her hair back into a black scrunchie, something that made her feel quite out of her comfort zone. When she walked downstairs dressed like this that same morning and waited for one of her parents to give her a ride to school, neither of them noticed her change in clothing. She didn't know what she had honestly expected, but she couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed.

Brian and Andy were the only ones who noticed it, like always. Over the week Allison had found herself moving more and more towards Brian and his friends, realising that she actually enjoyed the company of having a crowd to hang around with. It sucked that there were all boys, although she'd never admit to wanting a girlfriend, but they didn't seem to mind her occasionally butting in their conversations and her following them around. She realised she relished in having somewhere cemented to sit in her free time, because it gave her somewhere to always be. It also gave her an excellent view of the jock table and, more importantly, Andrew sitting at it.

He had approached her earlier in the day and completely surprised her, which was the last thing she ever expected him to do. She had been stood at her locker, assessing the situation of what books she would need for the rest of the day, and what could be put away to make her bag less heavy, when she felt like someone was standing behind her. Before she could even turn to see who it was, that person had said 'hey' and she instantly knew it was Andy.

She had turned to him, and said the same back. Then he'd looked her up and down in a very noticeable fashion, causing her to glare at him. But then he spoke, and all his words came out at once as if he had been holding them all in since Monday. He told her that he liked how she looked today and every day of the week, and he was sorry that he got dragged away the other day by his friends, and he thought they were a bunch of idiots, and he thought he was an idiot as well, and he couldn't hack going to practice next Thursday, and he was wondering if she wanted to do something with him instead. At the end of it all, he let out a deep breath, and his cheeks flushed a shade of pink.

Allison had smiled, and told him to meet her in front of the school instead of going to his practice. Then she shut her locker, gave him one last look, and stalked off down the hallway in a complete Allison fashion. With her back turned away from him, she didn't get to see how big the smile on Andrew Clark's face was as he watched her go.

Once the food-a simple enough pasta bake-was ready, the Reynold's family sat down at the table and began to eat.

It was a well known fact that conversations in the family only flowed when Jennifer was around. Maybe it was because both of their parents had jobs and were constantly busy with work, only stopping when their eldest daughter visited home, but Allison always swore that Jennifer was their favorite.

If she had a group of close friends, perhaps she would tell them she was adopted, to save the awkward questions of asking why things were this way. Allison didn't know. It was just the way they had always been.

She dug into the pasta bake, chewing away despite its singed taste, and paid little attention to her sister talking about college. She had been lucky enough to get a scholarship for music, which had truly been a huge help to the family. The Reynolds' weren't exactly poor, and with both parents working in the big city they were essentially very middle class. But Jennifer's essentially free trip to school helped them keep their funds in tact.

Allison wasn't going to get a music scholarship, or a scholarship of any kind. She had already prepared herself for the awkward conversation she had coming when her parents would try to explain to her why Jennifer could go to college, but she could not. Sometimes she could kid herself into not caring. Whenever Jennifer came home to visit-which was every time she broke up with her on-off boyfriend-Allison despised the stories she told of preps and parties and everything in between that.

Perhaps it was a good thing that she wasn't going to college. Since leaving home, Jennifer had essentially sold her soul to fashion and hair dye, and this month she was sporting a blonde perm; a far cry from the Reynolds' natural brunette hair.

Allison had just shoved a huge forkful of pasta into her mouth when she noticed Jennifer watching her, an expression of disgust and bemusement on her face. Allison ate the food in her mouth slowly, then gulped it down, letting out an 'ah' when it was gone.

"Can't you eat normally?" Jennifer asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I am," Allison replied. Jennifer pulled a face, then gently put her fork into a piece of pasta and cut into the cheese. She lifted the fork to her mouth and slowly ate the one piece of pasta while looking at her younger sister the whole time. Allison stuck her tongue out at her, and Jennifer rolled her eyes.

"Girls…" Mrs. Reynolds looked at them both, her face stern.

"Sorry, mom, I just don't know why Allison is so hostile! You'd think she'd be nicer because I'm not here all the time…"

"Jennifer, you're here most weekends now. You come home all the time, it's not a special occasion."

"Allison! I only come home more often because I'm having relationship problems with Robbie! Last week he told me he wanted to take a break, and I'm just not in a good place right now. You know it's a sore subject for me!" Jennifer looked from Allison to her mom, a desperate look on her face, and right on cue Mrs. Reynolds turned to Allison.

"Allison, don't upset your sister and don't ruin dinner. Jennifer, you know your father and I are happy to have you home at any time. You can take as long as you want." Mrs. Reynolds placed her hand over Jennifer's, and Allison narrowed her eyes at them both.

"It's okay. Allison obviously just doesn't understand what romantic relationships are like to deal with, because she's never had one and probably never will," Jennifer retorted, looking down at her food and avoiding Allison's icy stare. The younger girl looked over at her mother, who didn't look back, and then her father, who was too busy eating, and then back at her sister. She always brought out the worst in her.

"I do know what a romantic relationship is like," she said, before she could stop herself. It was only half a lie. Jennifer snorted, but both of her parents finally looked at her.

"How's that?"

"Because I'm in one. I have a boyfriend."

"You're lying."

"I'm not. He's really cool, but you'd hate him. He's definitely not your type."

"Well, what's he like then?" Jennifer asked out of general curiosity. Allison knew now that she couldn't describe Andy, because he wasn't someone that would shock her parents enough if she brought him home. She looked around at all of the eyes on her, and bit her lip before speaking again.

"Well… he smokes. Loads. And drinks. Tons. He was held back a few years so he's older, and he's into rock music." All lies.

"I don't like the sound of this boy, Allison," her dad chimed in, preventing her from carrying on with her description and digging herself a deeper hole. At this point her mother had lost the color in her cheeks, and Allison was getting a sick enjoyment from it.

"Well, I don't believe her," Jennifer said, putting her knife and fork down on her plate and wiping her mouth, "What's his name? Full name."

Allison glanced around the table, her mouth agape. She knew the question was coming, but she hadn't been prepared for it. She hadn't been prepared for any of it. She couldn't exactly tell them it was Andy, because what if he were to turn up to her house to see her one day and make her look like a complete liar? Which she was, but that was beside the point. She also never wanted Andrew to see her home, but that was also irrelevant. She just never wanted her sister to win in their stupid sibling rivalry. Allison had to think of a quick solution, and fast.

So she said the first name that popped into her head.

"John Bender."

And cemented herself even further as a big, fat liar, in a very deep hole that she had dug completely by herself.


	6. Chapter 6

**This is a fairly short chapter because I wanted to build on Claire and Allison as characters and develop their friendship.** **- mimujer**

* * *

Every Friday, Claire's dad picked her up from school. It was tradition for them; they would drive the long way home and talk about how their weeks had been, and if the weather was nice they would get ice cream and sometimes he would take her shopping or drop her off at her friend's houses. No matter how much stick she gave her parents, she always looked forward to spending the time with her dad every week.

On Friday, March 26th, Mr. Standish was late.

It happened sometimes. He would get held back at the office with paperwork or get caught up speaking to his colleagues and he would forget the time. Despite all this, though, it still upset Claire none-the-less.

On this particular Friday, Claire couldn't wait to get home. After royally embarrassing herself at lunch time in front of John Bender's friends, and waiting for him all week only for him to not show up, she couldn't wait to have the weekend to herself. It would be free of detention, a break from school and homework, and she'd already planned to draw herself a hot bath as soon as she got in.

So she eagerly left the building, told her friends she would call them the next night, and went outside expecting to find her dad's car already there for her, but it wasn't. She waited a little while longer, watched all the other kids leave; some got on buses, others walked, many got in their own cars or had their parents pick them up. Five minutes after the bell had gone, she watched her own girlfriends drive past her in Heather's car, but they didn't take any notice of her. Soon the traffic coming from the school building slowed, and a few teachers began to exist. That was when she finally accepted that her dad was going to be late tonight.

It really was not Claire's week.

She huffed to herself as she walked over to the steps leading up to the school, dropped her bag on the ground with a thud, then herself into a sitting position, pulling her legs up and wresting her arms on them while she sat with her head in her hands, frowning at the ground. For the first time since last Saturday, she felt like a self-entitled princess was cursing at her father for screwing up her plans, and for being so damn unreliable. She was cursing at herself for yet again getting her hopes up over an unreliable man, for thinking that her dad might make up for her current disillusionment with the male gender. Instead, he only destroyed it further, and it was only 4 o'clock.

Figuring there was nothing better for her to do, Claire sighed loudly and unbuckled her bag, rummaging around in it for a moment before producing a fairly thick book from it. On its front cover, embossed in bold and block capitals, read the name '_ANNA KARENINA_'. The spine was in bad condition, and the pages were creased and folded over at the top; a sign that the book was truly 'read in'. Claire quickly flicked to the middle of the novel and found the page she had last been reading from, and began focusing on the words.

"That's some heavy reading." A female voice brought Claire abruptly out of the Russian world depicted in her novel and back to Shermer, Illinois. It was tough, remembering her current situation and location. She had been enjoying the complicated romance of someone else so much that she didn't want to go back to her own, while she still sat on the steps outside of the school building. Her eyes darted upwards quickly to see Allison Reynolds staring down at her, and Claire shut her book with a satisfying thud.

"Allison! Hey," she said, plastering a smile on her face. Claire hadn't yet forgotten how Allison had treated her the other day in front of everyone, and likewise Claire hadn't yet forgiven her. So she watched the girl closely, trying to figure out what sort of mood she had decided to be in today. Allison stared back, raised her eyebrows, then dropped down to sit next to Claire on the steps. She smiled at her, echoing Claire's own smile, except Allison meant hers. It was small and it was timid, but it was real. Claire's mouth fell open and she broke eye contact to put her book away.

"Hope you don't mind me sitting here with you," Allison offered as a conversation starter.

"I don't really have a choice in the matter," Claire muttered back, rubbing her forehead with her pointer finger.

Out of everyone Claire had met in her life, even people like Bender, Allison was the only one that she couldn't quite figure out. There was something about Allison, some sort of motive, that threw Claire off every time. She was just different, in the most extreme way possible. She went way beyond anyone else in the school, beyond the punks and goths and preps and burners. Allison was her own person-her own island, if you will. She wore gym sneakers with pretty skirts, and covered her face with her hair when she had made an effort with her makeup. Over the course of the week, it was hard not to notice her wacky fashions. But it wasn't just that; Claire was almost afraid of her. She lied, tried to catch Claire out and make her feel like an idiot, and she was unpredictable. On Saturday, Claire had assumed Allison would be the first one to want to smoke with Bender. She didn't even try it once. Claire assumed she would be into darker, heavier bands, maybe similar to John's taste. Allison liked Prince and Phil Ochs, and danced like no one was watching.

There was something unnerving about a person who cared so little of what everyone thought of them.

The girls sat in silence for a while, both trying not to look at the other. Claire sat with her hands in her lap, her back straight, staring ahead at the road, willing for her dad to drive up any moment and save her. Allison sat with her hands on her ankles, slumped forwards, chin rested on her knees, looking up at the clouds and daydreaming to herself.

Allison couldn't figure out Claire just as much as she couldn't figure out her. She thought that it wouldn't have been so difficult to understand a girl like her; she liked pink, shopping and getting manicures. Her hair always looks bouncy and fluffy as if she had just walked out of a hair salon, and Allison imagined that most people watched her whenever she walked down the hallway. Claire was the sort of person that had everything going for her. She had friends, probably more than she could count on both hands, and she was beautiful. She was book smart and borderline street smart, although she still seemed dumb when matched up against someone like John Bender.

That was another thing Allison didn't get. Claire could go for any other guy, but she seemed hellbent on getting Bender to like her. Maybe it was because everyone else already liked her, but he was determined to make her feel like he didn't. He brought her down to earth when she was feeling too high and mighty, and knocked her down when she needed to be. And occasionally he was mean when there was no reason at all, but Claire still stuck around. Allison assumed Claire had daddy issues.

"Are you waiting for someone?" she asked, finally looking down from the sky and to the redhead sat beside her.

"Are you?"

"I'm waiting for my dad to pick me up."

Claire nodded. "Yeah, me too."

"He's a bit late, isn't he?"

"What about yours?"

"I always get out late on Fridays."

"Why?"

"It's when I go to see my therapist. The guidance counsellor. Whatever you want to call it. Every Friday after school until 4."

"Oh."

Claire bit her lip; she didn't know what else to say. Allison pressed her lips together; she didn't know how to reply.

"You-you were mean to me earlier in the week," Claire suddenly blurted out.

"Huh?"

Claire huffed to herself, and turned to face her company. "When you kept saying I was embarrassed of all of you, and making me look like an ass in front of John. That wasn't nice of you, and frankly I don't want to be friendly with someone who's going to be like that."

Allison had a bemused look on her face, "Why do you let yourself get so worked up?"

"I'm not worked up, I just don't want to be treated like shit by everyone! First I have you, a girl I thought was my friend, telling all of my other friends that I'm basically a bitch, and then I have John giving me an even harder time by completely ignoring me all week, and on top of that I have homework to do this weekend and my dad hasn't even showed to pick me up from school, when he promised he would, and-" Claire was cut off from speaking, because Allison had put her hand over her mouth. Claire frowned even more, and shrugged it off, but Allison's hand stayed pressed to her face as the other girl tried to convince Claire to stop wriggling around.

"Stop moving, Ginger Rogers, let me say something!"

Claire rolled her eyes, but stopped, all the while thinking to herself how much she hated the nicknames everyone seemed insistent of giving her.

"Promise to be quiet and I'll take my hand off. Okay?" Claire nodded. "Okay." And Allison moved her hand away. "If this is the sort of thing people have to do to get you to stop talking, then it's a problem. You talk too much and don't think before doing it. For one, people don't treat you like shit, they worship the ground you walk on. You're popular, remember? It's jerks like your friends who treat _me_ like shit, but do I let myself feel sorry or get hurt by it?"

"Then why do you go to the school counsellor?"

Allison's eyes widened. "I said no talking." She paused. "I never said you were a bitch, that was John Bender. I give you a hard time because you'd do the same right back if you weren't so sensitive. I'm the bitch, that's just the way I am. That's my excuse, at least."

"Can I talk now?"

Allison blinked at Claire a few times, then nodded once.

"Do you always push people away from you?"

"Don't we all?"

"No. I don't. At least I don't intend to. Allison-look, life's not some big drama for you to get kicks out of laughing at. Maybe I'm an emotional person, that's not a bad thing. But you don't have to knock everything just because it's not what you like or it's too, I don't know, mainstream for you. It's not a bad thing to fit in sometimes."

"Now you're just assuming things about me you don't know."

"It's true, though, isn't it? You claim that you don't like things to be edgy but you just want attention."

"I take it back, I'm not the bitch, you are!"

"Or maybe we both are? Maybe we're not that different? I don't like things that are different, you don't like things that are the same. How different is that?"

"Shut up, Claire," Allison said through slightly gritted teeth, then picked up her bag hastily and began to get up.

"No, you made me listen to you, now you listen to me. When people are mean to me I'm gonna react, that's normal. You're reacting now to me being mean to you, it shows you're just like everyone else!"

"I never said I wasn't like everyone else, but I don't want to be like people like you. I don't want to be like what my parents want, like how my sister is, or girls like you!"

"I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry for saying those things and I'm sorry if I annoyed you in the first place, I'm sorry I don't shut up and it annoys everyone, I'm sorry that I can tell secretly no one really likes me, not like I want them to," Claire said in a haste, her voice wobbling. Allison sat back down again, and as she got closer to Claire she realised that her eyes were watering.

"I'm sorry, too," Allison began, her voice quiet again, "I'm sorry I'm defensive and I give you stick for no reason. People don't like me like I want them to, either."

"Brian and Andy like you. Bender likes you. It's funny, I thought you were his type of girl when we all first met. I thought you were already friends, or you and him would…"

"Stop, that's gross." Allison mimed sticking her finger down her throat and vomiting, and Claire began to laugh.

"I know. I assumed things. But what I said is still true, they all like you. I like you-but only when you're being nice." A smile drew across Allison's face.

"I go to the school counsellor because I was a problem child," Allison began, taking note of Claire's confused look at the change in conversation, "You asked me why I go, so I'm telling you. When I was younger I used to lash out at people because I wanted attention. So, you were right. It builds on the image, doesn't it?"

Claire nodded, and began to dab her eyes to rid them of their wetness.

"If you think I'm going to explain all the rest of my life secrets to you in front of our school, I'm not. I don't want to talk about how I am anymore and I won't talk to you about the way you are. Let's call it me being '_edgy'_ and '_pushing people away'_. But I will offer a truce."

Claire smirked at Allison's remarks, but then sat up straight and nodded to show her sincerity, "I accept your truce. Are we friends?"

"We're neutrals."

"I guess I can accept that."

A short time later, Claire's dad finally pulled up in front of the school, only an hour late to pick his daughter up. Claire made to stand up, and Allison followed suite. The atmosphere was slightly awkward between them, but as they both dusted off their clothes and arranged their bags, they kept smiling at each other. Claire even offered Allison a ride, but the other girl declined and claimed she was going to just walk home anyway, though Claire seemed skeptical of how much truth was in that statement.

If there was anything at all she had learned about Allison today, it was that a lot of the time it was wise to just take everything she said with a grain of salt. If you really, truly wanted to get to know her, Claire assumed that it would just take a long time. Claire thought about Andy, and how smitten he seemed lately with the girl, and she almost wanted to feel sorry for him. But she didn't, because Allison reminded her of a more severe version of John. He was difficult too, and he dodged around a lot of things, but at least he told the truth, even if it got him into trouble. She was the Andy of her and John, and she didn't want to feel sorry for herself anymore, even though John was the most truthful of them all, and Allison the most complex.

As Claire walked down to the car, after saying her goodbye's to Allison, she turned around to look at her once more before getting into the car. She lifted her hand to wave, and in reply, across the distance, Allison tried to mouth something back.

"What?"

Allison cupped her hands around her mouth and spoke again: "John has detention here tomorrow!"

Once Claire took her seat in the car, her dad was extremely apologetic, claiming to have been held back in the office. He smelt strongly of menthol cigarettes and Chanel perfume. Claire told him she just wanted to go home, and then turned away from her father and stared out the window, watching Allison sit back down on the steps as the car pulled away. She wondered how Allison knew she was looking for John, and why she would help her out with something like that after everything. Maybe they really were friends.


End file.
